Vacation to the moon!

Honeymoon that is! (see all pictures)

We went to Alberta, which is quite warm, and has much more oxygen then the afforementioned moon. We arrived by plane in Calgary and stayed in a small country inn in the village of Okotoks, which has the claim to fame of having a very large rock (the largest glacial eratic in the world!). This place has murals depicting famous world structures, like the statue of liberty, niagra falls, eiffel tower, along side the famous eratic of Okotoks. I got a laugh out of it.

After a night in glorious Okotoks we headed for Banff, and Kananaskis country. We had opted to stay in a teepee village set up by the Blood tribes in the area as a source of tourism. Beutiful and unpeopled area, which is something I cannot say of Banff! The place was packed, and quite unpleasent for someone as homophobic (the sapien reference)as myself. My new wife had twisted her ankle on the first trail, and was not up for the many 6-8h hikes that my treasure hunting required of me. Luckily she enjoyed touring the horribly expensive shops that made up the bulk of the city, and trail riding in the mountains, while I took to a bike. I conquered 3 mountains while I was there (1 of them I had conquered before, so I took the gondola up this time). Another mountain, I dragged a bike up to the top (right past the no bikes sign), and had the time of my life riding the bike to the bottom. It was the first time I had ever gotten to ride a "shimano" bike, which is apparently top of the line!

Geocaching brought me to an interesting ghost town inside of Banff park, Bankhead, which was abandonned as the park expanded over top of it. The town still had mountains of unprocessed coal that had been extracted from the many mines across the town. The wife and I made it through both the industrial and residential sides of town, and this was by far the most extensive ghost town I had ever visited (and I have been to quite a few). On the way out of town I cought a glimpse of our first wilflife encounter - A wolf - who was startled and likely confused by our presence in town. We parted ways without incident.

Other wildlife I encountered was not so lucky. There was an abundance of ground squirrels in the park as well as deer. We saw a heard of elk, a heard of mountain sheep, and I saw a forest weasel of some sort while out geocaching, who followed me for about 2km. The wife and I got a little too close to one elk who ended up giving me a poke to the ribs with its velvet-clad antlers. This trip, I got off with a warning it seems. Now I can add "elk" to my close encounters list.

After a few days in Banff, we headed to spruce meadows for an equestrian tournament. We saw many horses jump over many fences, and met one of the wifes long-lost uncles in the process. I took off to view some of the geocaches that Calgary had to offer.. I think that my curse of urban caching seems to extend outside of Toronto.. I seem to have a very poor success rate inside cities, no doubt because they must be so much better hidden to avoid detection by the hordes of humans.

After Calgary we proceeded on a day trip to Edmonton, as we just had to do the west edmonton mall. We were disappointed to find out that the submarines in the mall had been closed for over a year, as well as the zoo and a fwe other features we had looked forward too. I bailed after about the 3rd clothing store and decided to try my hand at Edmonton Geocaches for a few hours. I had only 2 on my list, and managed to find them both, despite one of them being only slightly bigger then a pencil eraser. At the second cache (the must do for any self-respecting geocacher), I encountered 2 other groups of geocachers. There was a couple from Poland who were in town training for the olympics, and a large Edmontonian who wasn't very sociable. The Polanders and I made for the European part of town where I was shown the best place to get a gelato and bruchetta. We talked about a variety of things including the poor driving skills of spaniards, Italians, and ultimately Edmontonians. After having feasted on the delecasies presented to me, I bid Adieu, and made a dash for my car on the other side of the river in hopes that I could get back to the mall in time for "Superman". They have a large fire breathing dragon at the movie theatre which is quite neat!

After Edmonton we made the last major drive to Drumheller, aka Dinosaur town. I was simply gitty at the geology of the area, so much so that I was asked to pull over and let the wife drive so I would stop driving off the road. Many multicouloured cliffs, hoo-doos and geocaches surrounded by cacti. Simply great! We made the rounds to the various sights in the area including the Tyrell Museum, and an old abandonned coal tipple evelator and mine shaft. We rented a few horses and rode around the wayne valley, experiencing first hand the "Last chance Saloon" by horseback. We camped out on the Praries jeast of Drumheller, and ended up leaving a day early due to extreme heat, and running out of things to do. We decided to forgoe our meticulously planned schedule, and go west. The wife had been trying very hard to visit every tack store and attempt to find someone who would teach her the fine art of cattle cutting. She got a lead, and we headed for a small town just outside of Calgary. It turnout out to be a dead end, and we were stuck looking for a hotel room in Calgary, on opening weekend of the stampede.. not good.

We eventually came upon a set of small cabins that were set up near Cochrane, that were a bit costy, but well worth it, especially after camping in the praries (we felt like fricking kings). We slept in, gawked at the miracles of telivision, and then made a second run at finding the horse ranch, to no avail. We eventually had to go to the stampede as one of the shows that we had tickets for was begining. We got to see the chuckwagon races, which unfortunately resulted in the deaths of 2 horses. There was a cheesy opening ceremony as well that went on, that was impressive considering that all the actors put on a 3 hour show, and they were all under 18.

The best room we got to stay in was larger then out appartment, included a jacuzzi, king size bed, a set of bunk beds, leather couches, and cow skin rugs. Various artwork addorned the walls. Expensive, yes. But it was alot of fun! We headed back to the stampede the next day and watched the Bronco, and Bull riding competitions, and checked out all the stores with various ways of cooking cow. Funny thing though.. when it rained, everyone ran for cover.. The wife and I were left alone walking the stampede grounds in the rain as all these "cowboys" had taken shelter, or were scampering from tent to tent.

It was a great vacation, and despite me collecting close to 50 geocaches, the wife said it was the best time shes ever had. [Sweeeeet, i pulled it off!!] Oh well, back to the grindstone!